Now-Disbarred Bay State Attorney Charged In Alleged $900K Ripoff Of Elderly, Dead Clients' Cash

From the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General:

• A now-disbarred attorney has been indicted in connection with allegedly stealing a total of nearly $900,000 dollars from an estate she represented, a beneficiary of that estate whose funds were in a trust she managed, and an elderly client, Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office announced [].
• Maureen F. Pomeroy, age 44, of Bedford, has been indicted by a Middlesex Grand Jury on the charges of Larceny over $250 from a Person 60 or Older (2 counts), Larceny over $250 and Embezzlement by Fiduciary.

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• After receiving a complaint from Pomeroy’s elderly client,(1) the Massachusetts Office of Bar Counsel began an investigation into Pomeroy’s alleged activities. Following Bar Counsel’s investigation, a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court ordered Pomeroy’s temporary suspension from practice in October 2009. Pomeroy later resigned, and was disbarred in February 2010.
• A Middlesex Grand Jury returned indictments against Pomeroy on March 31, 2011. She will be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court at a later date.(2)

For the Massachusetts AG press release, see Disbarred Attorney Indicted in Connection with Stealing Nearly $900,000 From Elderly Client, Estate, and Trust.

(1) According to the press release, one of her clients was an 85 year-old man who had retained Pomeroy’s services in order to prepare a will and other estate planning documents for him, and to assist him in obtaining funds from several online bank accounts a relative had set up for him. Authorities allege that Pomeroy stole over $810,000 from this client by securing these funds, but concealing from the client the amount she had received from the accounts, and keeping a portion for herself instead of paying all of the funds to the client.

It is also alleged that she used some of the elderly client’s funds to repay two clients from whom she had earlier misappropriated money. During the investigation, authorities allegedly discovered that Pomeroy had defrauded the estate of a Waltham man and the man’s son.

(2) The Massachusetts Clients' Security Board Of The Supreme Judicial Court was established to manage and distribute the monies in the Fund to members of the public who have sustained a financial loss caused by the dishonest conduct of a member of the bar acting as an attorney or a fiduciary.

For similar "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" that sometimes help cover the financial mess created by the dishonest conduct of lawyers licensed in other states and Canada, see:

• Directory Of Lawyers' Funds For Client Protection (now includes Canadian recovery funds, courtesy of the American Bar Association);
• Check the USA Client Protection Funds Map;
• Check the Canada Client Protection Funds Map.

Maps available courtesy of The National Client Protection Organization, Inc.